How much is too much?

[jibberegg]

This is almost an academic question, but how much RAM is too much? I've got 8gb in my system at the moment, but with the ridiculously low prices I can get another 8gb for less than $40. While it's fun to have larger numbers purely for e-penis, how much typically gets used? Obviously it depends what you're doing but what sort of level are you maxing out with modern games for instance? Are they using up like 2gb and the OS 0.5gb and then antivirus and various background programs another 0.5gb? Or can they take advantage of 6gb, 8gb and more?

p.s. not referring to Skyrim here obviously

 

[GoStumpy]

I have 8GB as well.

I also have a spare set of 8GB sitting on my desk, but I'm not even going to bother installing it...

During BF3 with programs running, I show a high of 29% memory used.. thats 2.32GB...

 

[jibberegg]

Wow, I never thought that $40 for anything would feel like a waste. Looks like I'll just put that in a Jar marked "AMD 7990" or something

 

[Blastman]

I'm in the same boat. I have 4GB in my system now and I've don't think I've ever gone over 2.0GB of usage, so it's hard to justify and upgrade. But memory is so cheap I'm ready to pull the trigger on 8GB of better memory.

I paid $120 (Canadian) for 4GB in early 2010, and that was the cheapest I could find. Some faster, better overclcoking ram would have cost me another $40 - $50 at that time, so I feel like I'm just spending the money I saved then -- now.

I think 4GB should be enough for the next 5 years or so, but if I build a new system and use my current one as a server -- I might need some more ram, so it might be good to get in while the going is good. At ~ $40 8GB, there isn't much downside left. Upside, well we've seen what happened to HDD prices almost overnight.

 

[jellowiggler]

There won't be a need, gaming wise, for a system with more than 4gb until games are compiled as 64 bit executables. Until then the piggiest games are still limited to addressing 2gb in the Windows world because they are 32 bit programs.

This won't change until MS starts releasing versions of Windows in 64 bit only for a few years.

So it's purely an e penis play as far as games are concerned.

 

[jibberegg]

There are people still running 32-bit systems?? How quaint. I had a 486DX running Windows 95 16 years ago. Basically the same, right?

 

[nitromullet]

There are people still running 32-bit systems?? How quaint. I had a 486DX running Windows 95 16 years ago. Basically the same, right?

It's probably more a case of people still running 32-bit Windows on 64-bit cpu's. As jellowiggler said, MS needs to stop making a 32-bit version. Sadly enough, there is still a 32-bit version of the Windows 8 Developer preview. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

 

[Puppies04]

LOL @ 32bit windows 8..... Why???